Re: [RE][scifinoir2] Beyonce Heading for Gilligan's Island as Ginger?

[Omari Confer]

The new Charo? Thats messed up.


On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 1:07 PM, Daryle Lockhart
wrote:

>
> So basically, we're all agreeing that Beyonce has become the new
> Charo. The Black Kylie Minogue.
>
> If we're going to flip the switch that says we want Beyonce with the
> sound off, we should at least do a project that truly objectifies
> her. I say we bring back "I Dream of Jeanie".
>
>
> On Dec 24, 2008, at 7:53 AM, Martin Baxter wrote:
>
> > IMO, the perfect role for her skill-set.
> >
> > Martin (yes, he went there again)
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > -[ Received Mail Content ]--
> >
> > Subject : [scifinoir2] Beyonce Heading for Gilligan's Island as
> > Ginger?
> >
> > Date : Tue, 23 Dec 2008 22:31:37 -0800
> >
> > From : "Tracey de Morsella" 
> > 
> >
> >
> > To : "Phyllis Johnson" 
> > >,
> "CINQUE "
> > >, <
> scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com >
> >
> >
> > Sherwood Schwartz, creator of The Brady Bunch
> > , and his son Lloyd
> > Schwartz are finally moving ahead on a big screen version of
> > Gilligan's
> > Island , a 1969 sitcom
> > which the legendary producer also created. And if the two Schwartzs
> > have it
> > their way, Michael Cera will be slipping into that famous red shirt
> > and
> > white hat as Gilligan. They are also currently trying to nab
> > Beyonce as sexy
> > movie star Ginger.
> >
> > Speaking with Tv Guide during his induction into
> > the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Sherwood explained
> > that a deal,
> > "Just happened in the last 48 hours. I can't take this much
> > excitement at my
> > age." Dawn Wells, who played Mary Ann on the hit series, likes the
> > idea of
> > Beyonce playing Ginger and stated, "There isn't anybody sexier than
> > Beyonce!"
> >
> > The Gilligan's Island
> > movie doesn't have a set start date at this time, and no actors
> > have been
> > signed just yet. You can expect to hear more on this project in the
> > very
> > near future
> >
> > http://www.movieweb.com/news/NEcrahfjiqc8eh
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQdwk8Yntds
>
> 
>



-- 
cwm blog
http://centralheatingblog.blogspot.com
STRING THEORY
http://www.stringtheory.mypodcast.com

Re: [RE][scifinoir2] Beyonce Heading for Gilligan's Island as Ginger?

[Astromancer]

Jeez...I'm with you on that!

-See that guy who looks like a cross between Elvis and George Clinton? He is 
Johnny Ross.- From THE SIDE STREET CHRONICLES by C.W. Badie

--- On Wed, 12/24/08, Augustus Augustus  wrote:


From: Augustus Augustus 
Subject: Re: [RE][scifinoir2] Beyonce Heading for Gilligan's Island as Ginger?
To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wednesday, December 24, 2008, 6:38 PM










damn.  this trailer makes me want 2 see this one NOW!

--- On Wed, 12/24/08, Mike Street  wrote:

From: Mike Street 
Subject: Re: [RE][scifinoir2] Beyonce Heading for Gilligan's Island as Ginger?
To: scifino...@yahoogro ups.com
Date: Wednesday, December 24, 2008, 7:01 PM




But she want's to be a serious actress. Have ya'll seen the trailer
for Obsessed.
http://vids. eonline.com/ services/ link/bcpid139651 9019/bctid524041 2001

 














  

Re: [RE][scifinoir2] VHS - RIP

[Adrianne Brennan]

Red Dwarf here, plus tons of anime.
:)


~ "Where love and magic meet" ~
http://www.adriannebrennan.com
Take a bite out of Blood and Mint Chocolates:
http://www.adriannebrennan.com/bamc.html
Experience the magic of Blood of the Dark Moon:
http://www.adriannebrennan.com/botdm.html


On Sat, Dec 27, 2008 at 5:29 PM, Martin Baxter wrote:

> I'm here for you, brother.
>
> Martin (has Seasons 1&2 of DW on VHS, fighting back tears...)
>
>
>
>
>
> -[ Received Mail Content ]--
>
>  Subject : [scifinoir2] VHS - RIP
>
>  Date : Sat, 27 Dec 2008 18:12:42 -
>
>  From : "ravenadal" 
>
>  To : scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com
>
>
> I haven't been this melancholy since the demise of the late, great 8
> track (the 8 track was the soundtrack of my sane and sober youth). I
> literally own hundreds of VHS tapes. I have hours and hours of
> footage archived on VHS tape. The company I work for used to make
> millions of dollars a year selling that half inch of leader tape on
> every reel of VHS tape. (I think I'm going to need a moment here).
> But I knew this day was coming. Thieves recently broke into my
> townhouse and relieved me of my X-Box, my PS-2, my i-Mac desktop
> computer and all of my DVD players. I am still in possession of all
> three of my VHS players.
>
> ~rave!
>
>
> http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-vhs-tapes22-
> 2008dec22,0,5852342.story
>
> From the Los Angeles Times
>
> VHS era is winding down
>
> The last big supplier of the tapes is ditching the format, ending the
> long fade-out of a product that ushered in the home theater.
>
> By Geoff Boucher
>
> December 22, 2008
>
> Pop culture is finally hitting the eject button on the VHS tape, the
> once-ubiquitous home-video format that will finish this month as a
> creaky ghost of Christmas past.
>
> After three decades of steady if unspectacular service, the spinning
> wheels of the home-entertainment stalwart are slowing to a halt at
> retail outlets. On a crisp Friday morning in October, the final
> truckload of VHS tapes rolled out of a Palm Harbor, Fla., warehouse
> run by Ryan J. Kugler, the last major supplier of the tapes.
>
> "It's dead, this is it, this is the last Christmas, without a doubt,"
> said Kugler, 34, a Burbank businessman. "I was the last one buying VHS
> and the last one selling it, and I'm done. Anything left in warehouse
> we'll just give away or throw away."
>
> Dumped in a humid Florida landfill? It's an ignominious end for the
> innovative product that redefined film-watching in America and spawned
> an entire sector led by new household names like Blockbuster and West
> Coast Video. Those chains gave up on VHS a few years ago but not
> Kugler, who casually describes himself as "a bottom feeder" with a
> specialization in "distressed inventory."
>
> Kugler is president and co-owner of Distribution Video Audio Inc., a
> company that pulls in annual revenue of $20 million with a proud
> nickel-and-dime approach to fading and faded pop culture. Whether it's
> unwanted "Speed Racer" ball caps, unsold Danielle Steel novels or
> unappreciated David Hasselhoff albums, Kugler's company pays pennies
> and sells for dimes. If the firm had a motto, it would be "Buy low,
> sell low."
>
> "It's true, one man's trash is another man's gold," Kugler said. "But
> we are not the graveyard. I'm like a heart surgeon -- we keep things
> alive longer. Or maybe we're more like the convalescence home right
> before the graveyard."
>
> The last major Hollywood movie to be released on VHS was "A History of
> Violence" in 2006. By that point major retailers such as Best Buy and
> Wal-Mart were already well on their way to evicting all the VHS tapes
> from their shelves so the valuable real estate could go to the sleeker
> and smaller DVDs and, in more recent seasons, the latest upstart, Blu-
> ray discs. Kugler ended up buying back as much VHS inventory as he
> could from retailers, distributors and studios; he then sold more than
> 4 million VHS videotapes over the last two years.
>
> Those tapes went to bargain-basement chains such as Dollar Tree,
> Dollar General and Family Dollar, and Kugler's network of mom-and-pop
> clients and regional outlets, such as the Gabriel Bros. Stores in West
> Virginia or the Five Below chain in Pennsylvania. If you bought a
> Clint Eastwood movie at the Flying J Truck Stop in Saginaw, Mich., or
> a "Care Bears" tape at one of the H.E. Butts Grocery stores in Texas,
> Kugler's company probably put it there. He also sells to public
> libraries, military bases and cruise ships, although those clients now
> all pretty much want DVDs.
>
> Kugler estimates that 2 million tapes are still sitting on shelves of
> his clients' stores across the country, but they are the last analog
> soldiers in the lost battle against the digital invasion. "I'm not
> sure a lot of people are going to miss VHS," he said, "but it's been
>

Re: [scifinoir2] VHS - RIP

[Martin Baxter]

In the face of that, I am vividly ashamed to have complained in the least.





-[ Received Mail Content ]--

 Subject : Re: [scifinoir2] VHS - RIP

 Date : Sat, 27 Dec 2008 19:25:16 -0500

 From : Justin Mohareb 

 To : scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com


VHS?! Hah! My wife has Beta tapes of the entire runs of Blakes 7 and 
Quantum Leap.

Now that's obsolescence.

Justin

On 27-Dec-08, at 1:12 PM, "ravenadal"  wrote:

> I haven't been this melancholy since the demise of the late, great 8
> track (the 8 track was the soundtrack of my sane and sober youth). I
> literally own hundreds of VHS tapes. I have hours and hours of
> footage archived on VHS tape. The company I work for used to make
> millions of dollars a year selling that half inch of leader tape on
> every reel of VHS tape. (I think I'm going to need a moment here).
> But I knew this day was coming. Thieves recently broke into my
> townhouse and relieved me of my X-Box, my PS-2, my i-Mac desktop
> computer and all of my DVD players. I am still in possession of all
> three of my VHS players.
>
> ~rave!
>
> http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-vhs-tapes22-
> 2008dec22,0,5852342.story
>
> From the Los Angeles Times
>
> VHS era is winding down
>
> The last big supplier of the tapes is ditching the format, ending the
> long fade-out of a product that ushered in the home theater.
>
> By Geoff Boucher
>
> December 22, 2008
>
> Pop culture is finally hitting the eject button on the VHS tape, the
> once-ubiquitous home-video format that will finish this month as a
> creaky ghost of Christmas past.
>
> After three decades of steady if unspectacular service, the spinning
> wheels of the home-entertainment stalwart are slowing to a halt at
> retail outlets. On a crisp Friday morning in October, the final
> truckload of VHS tapes rolled out of a Palm Harbor, Fla., warehouse
> run by Ryan J. Kugler, the last major supplier of the tapes.
>
> "It's dead, this is it, this is the last Christmas, without a doubt,"
> said Kugler, 34, a Burbank businessman. "I was the last one buying VHS
> and the last one selling it, and I'm done. Anything left in warehouse
> we'll just give away or throw away."
>
> Dumped in a humid Florida landfill? It's an ignominious end for the
> innovative product that redefined film-watching in America and spawned
> an entire sector led by new household names like Blockbuster and West
> Coast Video. Those chains gave up on VHS a few years ago but not
> Kugler, who casually describes himself as "a bottom feeder" with a
> specialization in "distressed inventory."
>
> Kugler is president and co-owner of Distribution Video Audio Inc., a
> company that pulls in annual revenue of $20 million with a proud
> nickel-and-dime approach to fading and faded pop culture. Whether it's
> unwanted "Speed Racer" ball caps, unsold Danielle Steel novels or
> unappreciated David Hasselhoff albums, Kugler's company pays pennies
> and sells for dimes. If the firm had a motto, it would be "Buy low,
> sell low."
>
> "It's true, one man's trash is another man's gold," Kugler said. "But
> we are not the graveyard. I'm like a heart surgeon -- we keep things
> alive longer. Or maybe we're more like the convalescence home right
> before the graveyard."
>
> The last major Hollywood movie to be released on VHS was "A History of
> Violence" in 2006. By that point major retailers such as Best Buy and
> Wal-Mart were already well on their way to evicting all the VHS tapes
> from their shelves so the valuable real estate could go to the sleeker
> and smaller DVDs and, in more recent seasons, the latest upstart, Blu-
> ray discs. Kugler ended up buying back as much VHS inventory as he
> could from retailers, distributors and studios; he then sold more than
> 4 million VHS videotapes over the last two years.
>
> Those tapes went to bargain-basement chains such as Dollar Tree,
> Dollar General and Family Dollar, and Kugler's network of mom-and-pop
> clients and regional outlets, such as the Gabriel Bros. Stores in West
> Virginia or the Five Below chain in Pennsylvania. If you bought a
> Clint Eastwood movie at the Flying J Truck Stop in Saginaw, Mich., or
> a "Care Bears" tape at one of the H.E. Butts Grocery stores in Texas,
> Kugler's company probably put it there. He also sells to public
> libraries, military bases and cruise ships, although those clients now
> all pretty much want DVDs.
>
> Kugler estimates that 2 million tapes are still sitting on shelves of
> his clients' stores across the country, but they are the last analog
> soldiers in the lost battle against the digital invasion. "I'm not
> sure a lot of people are going to miss VHS," he said, "but it's been
> good to us."
>
> If you rewind back to the 1980s, VHS represented a remarkable turning
> point for the American consumer. For the first time, Hollywood's
> classics and its recent hits could be rented and watched at home.
>
> "It was a sea change," says Leonard Maltin, the film critic 

Re: [scifinoir2] VHS - RIP

[Justin Mohareb]

VHS?!  Hah!  My wife has Beta tapes of the entire runs of Blakes 7 and  
Quantum Leap.


Now that's obsolescence.

Justin

On 27-Dec-08, at 1:12 PM, "ravenadal"  wrote:


I haven't been this melancholy since the demise of the late, great 8
track (the 8 track was the soundtrack of my sane and sober youth). I
literally own hundreds of VHS tapes. I have hours and hours of
footage archived on VHS tape. The company I work for used to make
millions of dollars a year selling that half inch of leader tape on
every reel of VHS tape. (I think I'm going to need a moment here).
But I knew this day was coming. Thieves recently broke into my
townhouse and relieved me of my X-Box, my PS-2, my i-Mac desktop
computer and all of my DVD players. I am still in possession of all
three of my VHS players.

~rave!  

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-vhs-tapes22-
2008dec22,0,5852342.story

From the Los Angeles Times

VHS era is winding down

The last big supplier of the tapes is ditching the format, ending the
long fade-out of a product that ushered in the home theater.

By Geoff Boucher

December 22, 2008

Pop culture is finally hitting the eject button on the VHS tape, the
once-ubiquitous home-video format that will finish this month as a
creaky ghost of Christmas past.

After three decades of steady if unspectacular service, the spinning
wheels of the home-entertainment stalwart are slowing to a halt at
retail outlets. On a crisp Friday morning in October, the final
truckload of VHS tapes rolled out of a Palm Harbor, Fla., warehouse
run by Ryan J. Kugler, the last major supplier of the tapes.

"It's dead, this is it, this is the last Christmas, without a doubt,"
said Kugler, 34, a Burbank businessman. "I was the last one buying VHS
and the last one selling it, and I'm done. Anything left in warehouse
we'll just give away or throw away."

Dumped in a humid Florida landfill? It's an ignominious end for the
innovative product that redefined film-watching in America and spawned
an entire sector led by new household names like Blockbuster and West
Coast Video. Those chains gave up on VHS a few years ago but not
Kugler, who casually describes himself as "a bottom feeder" with a
specialization in "distressed inventory."

Kugler is president and co-owner of Distribution Video Audio Inc., a
company that pulls in annual revenue of $20 million with a proud
nickel-and-dime approach to fading and faded pop culture. Whether it's
unwanted "Speed Racer" ball caps, unsold Danielle Steel novels or
unappreciated David Hasselhoff albums, Kugler's company pays pennies
and sells for dimes. If the firm had a motto, it would be "Buy low,
sell low."

"It's true, one man's trash is another man's gold," Kugler said. "But
we are not the graveyard. I'm like a heart surgeon -- we keep things
alive longer. Or maybe we're more like the convalescence home right
before the graveyard."

The last major Hollywood movie to be released on VHS was "A History of
Violence" in 2006. By that point major retailers such as Best Buy and
Wal-Mart were already well on their way to evicting all the VHS tapes
from their shelves so the valuable real estate could go to the sleeker
and smaller DVDs and, in more recent seasons, the latest upstart, Blu-
ray discs. Kugler ended up buying back as much VHS inventory as he
could from retailers, distributors and studios; he then sold more than
4 million VHS videotapes over the last two years.

Those tapes went to bargain-basement chains such as Dollar Tree,
Dollar General and Family Dollar, and Kugler's network of mom-and-pop
clients and regional outlets, such as the Gabriel Bros. Stores in West
Virginia or the Five Below chain in Pennsylvania. If you bought a
Clint Eastwood movie at the Flying J Truck Stop in Saginaw, Mich., or
a "Care Bears" tape at one of the H.E. Butts Grocery stores in Texas,
Kugler's company probably put it there. He also sells to public
libraries, military bases and cruise ships, although those clients now
all pretty much want DVDs.

Kugler estimates that 2 million tapes are still sitting on shelves of
his clients' stores across the country, but they are the last analog
soldiers in the lost battle against the digital invasion. "I'm not
sure a lot of people are going to miss VHS," he said, "but it's been
good to us."

If you rewind back to the 1980s, VHS represented a remarkable turning
point for the American consumer. For the first time, Hollywood's
classics and its recent hits could be rented and watched at home.

"It was a sea change," says Leonard Maltin, the film critic and author
who has written stacks of books to meet the consumer need for video
recommendations. "Hollywood thought it would hurt movie ticket sales,
but it didn't deter people from going to movies; in fact, it only
increased their appetite for entertainment. Hollywood also thought it
would just be a rental market, but then when someone had the idea of
lowering the prices, the people wanted to own movies. They wanted
libraries at 

[RE][scifinoir2] An Appreciation: the Purrrfect Diva

[Martin Baxter]

I would've paid twice that for the experience, easily. The lady shall be 
missed, and by far too few, I fear... :-(





-[ Received Mail Content ]--

 Subject : [scifinoir2] An Appreciation: the Purrrfect Diva

 Date : Sat, 27 Dec 2008 17:18:29 -

 From : "ravenadal" 

 To : scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2008/12/25/AR2008122500870.html

The Purrrfect Diva

Eartha Kitt Had a Taste For the Best Things in Life

By Wil Haygood

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, December 26, 2008; C01

In her fantastical life, Eartha Kitt came to like a great many things. 
Men, sex, bawdy songs. I personally know about the lemon sorbet, the 
mango sorbet and the strawberry sorbet.

I found myself dining with Kitt -- who died of cancer at the age of 81 
yesterday -- at the swanky Cafe Carlyle in Manhattan several years 
ago. I was working on a book about Sammy Davis Jr., once a romantic 
interest of Kitt's. Kitt's office suggested the Carlyle. Being on book 
leave, without a steady income and counting pennies, I gulped: The 
Carlyle wasn't the place for a penny-pincher. But I needed the 
interview, so I dared not back out of the chance to talk with her. 
Kitt had known Davis when both were very young and both were hanging 
out at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco.

Arriving early on the day of our meeting, I was led to a table. There 
was fine sunlight, lovely wood and an attentive waiter. I looked at 
the prices on the menu and wanted to scram. Kitt was late -- first 10 
minutes, then 20. She may have been born poor, but she traveled 
through life with the blood of a true diva. So, of course, she'd be 
late. But I fretted she might have forgotten, or changed her mind. 
Then I noticed heads swiveling toward the entrance -- and there stood 
Eartha Kitt, wearing a short, bone-white fur coat, white slacks and a 
canary yellow turban atop her head. She had a white poodle cupped in 
each arm. I gave a wave, and she strode over, the poodles twisting in 
her arms.

"Let's order!" she demanded. She said she didn't care to remove her 
sunglasses because it was still early in the day. It was around 1:30 
in the afternoon.

A waiter came over and took the poodles away, delivering them to 
Kitt's suite upstairs. She had a gig going at the Carlyle, and most of 
the shows were sold out.

The next 90 minutes were unforgettable. There were stories of men she 
had conquered (Sammy Davis Jr. among them), foreign lands she had 
traveled to, songs she had sung. I remember what she ordered because I 
held on to the receipt for years to show to people: salmon, asparagus, 
white wine, two glasses, which turned into three glasses. I wanted to 
cry every time I saw her motioning for the waiter: "Water, please, and 
bottled." But every other minute brought forth some delicious 
revelation, a tale of a child born in South Carolina to sharecropper 
parents and who forced the entertainment world to take notice of her.

Consider the era she thrived in -- and the competition she faced. Kitt 
came of age when a bevy of sepia beauties were just starting to strut 
their stuff from Broadway to Hollywood. It was the 1950s, and Madison 
Avenue may have ignored these women, but they were seen now and then 
in the pages of Life and Holiday magazines.

Lena Horne, Dorothy Dandridge, Hazel Scott, Joe Lewis's wife, Marva, 
Sugar Ray Robinson's wife, Edna Mae, and Kitt were different from the 
darkly hued and heavy-set black women of 1940s Hollywood, women like 
Hattie McDaniel, Ethel Waters, Butterfly McQueen and Louise Beavers. 
Those women were known mostly for playing maid roles in cinema.

This new group of beauties changed the way that America looked at the 
black woman. They went to parties hosted by Joe Louis in Chicago or 
Manhattan; they hung out at Sugar Ray's nightclub in Harlem, their 
images reflected in the long mirror behind the bar. They all came to 
admire themselves in some of those old Negro periodicals -- Sepia, 
Ebony and Brown. Their pictures hung in hair salons in black 
communities throughout America. They competed against one another for 
movie roles: Kitt got "Anna Lucasta" alongside Davis, among other 
roles. And she had to sweat her way through the "Anna" auditions.

"The camera couldn't conceal the fact that Eartha was not a beautiful 
woman," Philip Yordan, the writer of "Anna" told me.

But no one, absolutely no one, could have told Eartha Kitt she was not 
beautiful. She refused to be in the shadow of Horne or Dandridge. Kitt 
had a repertoire that ranged from nightclubs to Broadway to dramatic 
roles in movies and TV.

Maybe it was because she was born poor, and maybe that birthright 
either scars you or propels you into other dimensions, but Kitt fought 
harder than Horne, Dandridge and Scott for recognition. She took 
risks, kept an edge about her, singing sexually suggestive songs and 
parading her body onstage in a way that some thought was too 
provocati

[RE][scifinoir2] VHS - RIP

[Martin Baxter]

I'm here for you, brother.

Martin (has Seasons 1&2 of DW on VHS, fighting back tears...)





-[ Received Mail Content ]--

 Subject : [scifinoir2] VHS - RIP

 Date : Sat, 27 Dec 2008 18:12:42 -

 From : "ravenadal" 

 To : scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com


I haven't been this melancholy since the demise of the late, great 8 
track (the 8 track was the soundtrack of my sane and sober youth). I 
literally own hundreds of VHS tapes. I have hours and hours of 
footage archived on VHS tape. The company I work for used to make 
millions of dollars a year selling that half inch of leader tape on 
every reel of VHS tape. (I think I'm going to need a moment here). 
But I knew this day was coming. Thieves recently broke into my 
townhouse and relieved me of my X-Box, my PS-2, my i-Mac desktop 
computer and all of my DVD players. I am still in possession of all 
three of my VHS players.

~rave!  


http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-vhs-tapes22-
2008dec22,0,5852342.story

>From the Los Angeles Times

VHS era is winding down

The last big supplier of the tapes is ditching the format, ending the 
long fade-out of a product that ushered in the home theater.

By Geoff Boucher

December 22, 2008

Pop culture is finally hitting the eject button on the VHS tape, the 
once-ubiquitous home-video format that will finish this month as a 
creaky ghost of Christmas past.

After three decades of steady if unspectacular service, the spinning 
wheels of the home-entertainment stalwart are slowing to a halt at 
retail outlets. On a crisp Friday morning in October, the final 
truckload of VHS tapes rolled out of a Palm Harbor, Fla., warehouse 
run by Ryan J. Kugler, the last major supplier of the tapes.

"It's dead, this is it, this is the last Christmas, without a doubt," 
said Kugler, 34, a Burbank businessman. "I was the last one buying VHS 
and the last one selling it, and I'm done. Anything left in warehouse 
we'll just give away or throw away."

Dumped in a humid Florida landfill? It's an ignominious end for the 
innovative product that redefined film-watching in America and spawned 
an entire sector led by new household names like Blockbuster and West 
Coast Video. Those chains gave up on VHS a few years ago but not 
Kugler, who casually describes himself as "a bottom feeder" with a 
specialization in "distressed inventory."

Kugler is president and co-owner of Distribution Video Audio Inc., a 
company that pulls in annual revenue of $20 million with a proud 
nickel-and-dime approach to fading and faded pop culture. Whether it's 
unwanted "Speed Racer" ball caps, unsold Danielle Steel novels or 
unappreciated David Hasselhoff albums, Kugler's company pays pennies 
and sells for dimes. If the firm had a motto, it would be "Buy low, 
sell low."

"It's true, one man's trash is another man's gold," Kugler said. "But 
we are not the graveyard. I'm like a heart surgeon -- we keep things 
alive longer. Or maybe we're more like the convalescence home right 
before the graveyard."

The last major Hollywood movie to be released on VHS was "A History of 
Violence" in 2006. By that point major retailers such as Best Buy and 
Wal-Mart were already well on their way to evicting all the VHS tapes 
from their shelves so the valuable real estate could go to the sleeker 
and smaller DVDs and, in more recent seasons, the latest upstart, Blu-
ray discs. Kugler ended up buying back as much VHS inventory as he 
could from retailers, distributors and studios; he then sold more than 
4 million VHS videotapes over the last two years.

Those tapes went to bargain-basement chains such as Dollar Tree, 
Dollar General and Family Dollar, and Kugler's network of mom-and-pop 
clients and regional outlets, such as the Gabriel Bros. Stores in West 
Virginia or the Five Below chain in Pennsylvania. If you bought a 
Clint Eastwood movie at the Flying J Truck Stop in Saginaw, Mich., or 
a "Care Bears" tape at one of the H.E. Butts Grocery stores in Texas, 
Kugler's company probably put it there. He also sells to public 
libraries, military bases and cruise ships, although those clients now 
all pretty much want DVDs.

Kugler estimates that 2 million tapes are still sitting on shelves of 
his clients' stores across the country, but they are the last analog 
soldiers in the lost battle against the digital invasion. "I'm not 
sure a lot of people are going to miss VHS," he said, "but it's been 
good to us."

If you rewind back to the 1980s, VHS represented a remarkable turning 
point for the American consumer. For the first time, Hollywood's 
classics and its recent hits could be rented and watched at home.

"It was a sea change," says Leonard Maltin, the film critic and author 
who has written stacks of books to meet the consumer need for video 
recommendations. "Hollywood thought it would hurt movie ticket sales, 
but it didn't deter people from going to movies; in fact, it only 
increased their appetite for entertainment. Hollywood al

[scifinoir2] VHS - RIP

[ravenadal]

I haven't been this melancholy since the demise of the late, great 8 
track (the 8 track was the soundtrack of my sane and sober youth).  I 
literally own hundreds of VHS tapes.  I have hours and hours of 
footage archived on VHS tape.  The company I work for used to make 
millions of dollars a year selling that half inch of leader tape on 
every reel of VHS tape.  (I think I'm going to need a moment here).  
But I knew this day was coming.  Thieves recently broke into my 
townhouse and relieved me of my X-Box, my PS-2, my i-Mac desktop 
computer and all of my DVD players.  I am still in possession of all 
three of my VHS players.

~rave!  


http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-vhs-tapes22-
2008dec22,0,5852342.story

>From the Los Angeles Times

VHS era is winding down

The last big supplier of the tapes is ditching the format, ending the 
long fade-out of a product that ushered in the home theater.

By Geoff Boucher

December 22, 2008

Pop culture is finally hitting the eject button on the VHS tape, the 
once-ubiquitous home-video format that will finish this month as a 
creaky ghost of Christmas past.

After three decades of steady if unspectacular service, the spinning 
wheels of the home-entertainment stalwart are slowing to a halt at 
retail outlets. On a crisp Friday morning in October, the final 
truckload of VHS tapes rolled out of a Palm Harbor, Fla., warehouse 
run by Ryan J. Kugler, the last major supplier of the tapes.

"It's dead, this is it, this is the last Christmas, without a doubt," 
said Kugler, 34, a Burbank businessman. "I was the last one buying VHS 
and the last one selling it, and I'm done. Anything left in warehouse 
we'll just give away or throw away."

Dumped in a humid Florida landfill? It's an ignominious end for the 
innovative product that redefined film-watching in America and spawned 
an entire sector led by new household names like Blockbuster and West 
Coast Video. Those chains gave up on VHS a few years ago but not 
Kugler, who casually describes himself as "a bottom feeder" with a 
specialization in "distressed inventory."

Kugler is president and co-owner of Distribution Video Audio Inc., a 
company that pulls in annual revenue of $20 million with a proud 
nickel-and-dime approach to fading and faded pop culture. Whether it's 
unwanted "Speed Racer" ball caps, unsold Danielle Steel novels or 
unappreciated David Hasselhoff albums, Kugler's company pays pennies 
and sells for dimes. If the firm had a motto, it would be "Buy low, 
sell low."

"It's true, one man's trash is another man's gold," Kugler said. "But 
we are not the graveyard. I'm like a heart surgeon -- we keep things 
alive longer. Or maybe we're more like the convalescence home right 
before the graveyard."

The last major Hollywood movie to be released on VHS was "A History of 
Violence" in 2006. By that point major retailers such as Best Buy and 
Wal-Mart were already well on their way to evicting all the VHS tapes 
from their shelves so the valuable real estate could go to the sleeker 
and smaller DVDs and, in more recent seasons, the latest upstart, Blu-
ray discs. Kugler ended up buying back as much VHS inventory as he 
could from retailers, distributors and studios; he then sold more than 
4 million VHS videotapes over the last two years.

Those tapes went to bargain-basement chains such as Dollar Tree, 
Dollar General and Family Dollar, and Kugler's network of mom-and-pop 
clients and regional outlets, such as the Gabriel Bros. Stores in West 
Virginia or the Five Below chain in Pennsylvania. If you bought a 
Clint Eastwood movie at the Flying J Truck Stop in Saginaw, Mich., or 
a "Care Bears" tape at one of the H.E. Butts Grocery stores in Texas, 
Kugler's company probably put it there. He also sells to public 
libraries, military bases and cruise ships, although those clients now 
all pretty much want DVDs.

Kugler estimates that 2 million tapes are still sitting on shelves of 
his clients' stores across the country, but they are the last analog 
soldiers in the lost battle against the digital invasion. "I'm not 
sure a lot of people are going to miss VHS," he said, "but it's been 
good to us."

If you rewind back to the 1980s, VHS represented a remarkable turning 
point for the American consumer. For the first time, Hollywood's 
classics and its recent hits could be rented and watched at home.

"It was a sea change," says Leonard Maltin, the film critic and author 
who has written stacks of books to meet the consumer need for video 
recommendations. "Hollywood thought it would hurt movie ticket sales, 
but it didn't deter people from going to movies; in fact, it only 
increased their appetite for entertainment. Hollywood also thought it 
would just be a rental market, but then when someone had the idea of 
lowering the prices, the people wanted to own movies. They wanted 
libraries at home, and suddenly VHS was a huge part of our lives."

The format was easy to use (although fast-forwa

[scifinoir2] Re: "Button" charms but doesn't inspire

[ravenadal]

I went to see "Button" and, on the whole, I enjoyed it.  It is a much 
more melancholy movie than "Forrest Gump," a movie that it is often 
compared to and, at nearly three hours, it is long - but not overly 
so.  It is as long as it needs to be.  And "Button" is often like that  
- all it needs to be - but seldomly more.  It doesn't soar as "Gump" 
did and it feels derivative: Gump's braces are Button's old man 
wheelchair and double canes; "Lieutenant Dan" meet "Cap'n Mike"; Cate 
Blanchett's Daisy is Button's Jenny.  That said, "Button" is an oddly 
affecting movie that stays with you long after the theater lights have 
come back on.

~rave! 

(By the by, I would like to give a special shout out to Taraji P. 
Henson's performance as Button's "mother."  This is a small jewel of a 
performance by an actress who is proving herself to be an artist with 
many colors on her palette.  From "Baby Boy" to "Button" is quite a 
journey).  

--- In scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com, "ravenadal"  wrote:
>
> I went to see "Button 
> 
> http://www.jsonline.com/entertainment/movies/36635264.html
> 
> 'Button' charms but doesn't inspire
> 
> By Duane Dudek of the Journal Sentinel
> 
> Posted: Dec. 24, 2008
> 
> Planes fly and electric lights burn.
> 
> We're not quite sure how they do these things, but we know they do.
> 
> Sometimes, we have to accept that successful things are just the sum 
> of their countless different parts.
> 
> And so it is with "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." Movie star 
> Brad Pitt, author F. Scott Fitzgerald, "Fight Club" director David 
> Fincher, the shabbily beautiful city of New Orleans and the most 
> sophisticated digital technology known to man combine to create a 
> thing that is equal parts mechanical and wondrous, and which would 
not 
> work as well, if at all, without each of them.
> 
> But it comes at the price of feeling assembled like a toy under the 
> tree on Christmas morning. The film, opening Thursday, is a marvel 
and 
> skilled filmmaking, by the director of "Fight Club" and "Seven," 
both 
> of which also starred Pitt.
> 
> But while "Benjamin Button" demonstrates imagination, it doesn't 
> inspire it.
> 
> Fitzgerald's short story, elaborating Mark Twain's remark that the 
> best times of our life come at the beginning and not the end, is 
about 
> a man born old who lives his life in reverse. The screenplay by Eric 
> Roth creates an elaborate device - a backward running clock - to put 
> this in motion, and another - a diary being read to a dying elderly 
> woman while Hurricane Katrina approaches - to sustain it, which add 
a 
> quarter-hour or so to the film's epic 159-minute running time.
> 
> It is Benjamin Button's diary, although he is never seen writing it, 
> chronicling his adventures in life and love.
> 
> And adventures they were.
> 
> Orphaned at birth, and born as wrinkled as an octogenarian, he was 
> taken in by an African-American woman, played by Taraji P. Henson, 
and 
> raised in the nursing home she ran. As he aged, he fit right in with 
> the other residents. But as they died off, he grew strong and 
virile.
> 
> During this period, he met the little girl who would become his true 
> love, and as she grew older and he younger, their destiny was to 
> someday meet in the middle.
> 
> In his teens, and looking like a bald and bespectacled 60-year-old, 
he 
> found work on a Mississippi tugboat that traveled the world. In 
> Russia, he had an affair with a diplomat's wife, played by Tilda 
> Swinton, and he saw action in World War II.
> 
> Except at the extremes of his lifespan, when he is played by other 
> actors, Benjamin is played by Pitt, assisted by so many prosthetics 
> and pixels that it's hard to tell if it's him or a beautiful avatar. 
> But most times, it is a meticulous simulation, and often poignant, 
> especially when he and the now-grown little girl, played by Cate 
> Blanchett, meet each other while traveling in opposite directions 
> through time. During this period, Pitt looks like he does today, but 
> at one point he looks like he did 17 years ago in "Thelma & Louise."
> 
> Roth also wrote "Forrest Gump," and, like that film, "Benjamin 
Button" 
> suffers from delusions of grandeur. But if Forrest was present at 
> events of historical significance, Benjamin's journey is a personal 
> and, albeit effects-heavy, interior one. Which allows wondrous 
moments 
> - like Blanchett dancing under the stars as jazz from Bourbon St. 
> plays softly on the breeze - to slip through, and for which no 
> assembly is required.
> 
> E-mail: ddu...@...
>

[scifinoir2] "Button

[ravenadal]

I went to see "Button 

http://www.jsonline.com/entertainment/movies/36635264.html

'Button' charms but doesn't inspire

By Duane Dudek of the Journal Sentinel

Posted: Dec. 24, 2008

Planes fly and electric lights burn.

We're not quite sure how they do these things, but we know they do.

Sometimes, we have to accept that successful things are just the sum 
of their countless different parts.

And so it is with "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." Movie star 
Brad Pitt, author F. Scott Fitzgerald, "Fight Club" director David 
Fincher, the shabbily beautiful city of New Orleans and the most 
sophisticated digital technology known to man combine to create a 
thing that is equal parts mechanical and wondrous, and which would not 
work as well, if at all, without each of them.

But it comes at the price of feeling assembled like a toy under the 
tree on Christmas morning. The film, opening Thursday, is a marvel and 
skilled filmmaking, by the director of "Fight Club" and "Seven," both 
of which also starred Pitt.

But while "Benjamin Button" demonstrates imagination, it doesn't 
inspire it.

Fitzgerald's short story, elaborating Mark Twain's remark that the 
best times of our life come at the beginning and not the end, is about 
a man born old who lives his life in reverse. The screenplay by Eric 
Roth creates an elaborate device - a backward running clock - to put 
this in motion, and another - a diary being read to a dying elderly 
woman while Hurricane Katrina approaches - to sustain it, which add a 
quarter-hour or so to the film's epic 159-minute running time.

It is Benjamin Button's diary, although he is never seen writing it, 
chronicling his adventures in life and love.

And adventures they were.

Orphaned at birth, and born as wrinkled as an octogenarian, he was 
taken in by an African-American woman, played by Taraji P. Henson, and 
raised in the nursing home she ran. As he aged, he fit right in with 
the other residents. But as they died off, he grew strong and virile.

During this period, he met the little girl who would become his true 
love, and as she grew older and he younger, their destiny was to 
someday meet in the middle.

In his teens, and looking like a bald and bespectacled 60-year-old, he 
found work on a Mississippi tugboat that traveled the world. In 
Russia, he had an affair with a diplomat's wife, played by Tilda 
Swinton, and he saw action in World War II.

Except at the extremes of his lifespan, when he is played by other 
actors, Benjamin is played by Pitt, assisted by so many prosthetics 
and pixels that it's hard to tell if it's him or a beautiful avatar. 
But most times, it is a meticulous simulation, and often poignant, 
especially when he and the now-grown little girl, played by Cate 
Blanchett, meet each other while traveling in opposite directions 
through time. During this period, Pitt looks like he does today, but 
at one point he looks like he did 17 years ago in "Thelma & Louise."

Roth also wrote "Forrest Gump," and, like that film, "Benjamin Button" 
suffers from delusions of grandeur. But if Forrest was present at 
events of historical significance, Benjamin's journey is a personal 
and, albeit effects-heavy, interior one. Which allows wondrous moments 
- like Blanchett dancing under the stars as jazz from Bourbon St. 
plays softly on the breeze - to slip through, and for which no 
assembly is required.

E-mail: ddu...@journalsentinel.com
 

 

[scifinoir2] An Appreciation: the Purrrfect Diva

[ravenadal]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2008/12/25/AR2008122500870.html

The Purrrfect Diva

Eartha Kitt Had a Taste For the Best Things in Life

By Wil Haygood

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, December 26, 2008; C01

In her fantastical life, Eartha Kitt came to like a great many things. 
Men, sex, bawdy songs. I personally know about the lemon sorbet, the 
mango sorbet and the strawberry sorbet.

I found myself dining with Kitt -- who died of cancer at the age of 81 
yesterday -- at the swanky Cafe Carlyle in Manhattan several years 
ago. I was working on a book about Sammy Davis Jr., once a romantic 
interest of Kitt's. Kitt's office suggested the Carlyle. Being on book 
leave, without a steady income and counting pennies, I gulped: The 
Carlyle wasn't the place for a penny-pincher. But I needed the 
interview, so I dared not back out of the chance to talk with her. 
Kitt had known Davis when both were very young and both were hanging 
out at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco.

Arriving early on the day of our meeting, I was led to a table. There 
was fine sunlight, lovely wood and an attentive waiter. I looked at 
the prices on the menu and wanted to scram. Kitt was late -- first 10 
minutes, then 20. She may have been born poor, but she traveled 
through life with the blood of a true diva. So, of course, she'd be 
late. But I fretted she might have forgotten, or changed her mind. 
Then I noticed heads swiveling toward the entrance -- and there stood 
Eartha Kitt, wearing a short, bone-white fur coat, white slacks and a 
canary yellow turban atop her head. She had a white poodle cupped in 
each arm. I gave a wave, and she strode over, the poodles twisting in 
her arms.

"Let's order!" she demanded. She said she didn't care to remove her 
sunglasses because it was still early in the day. It was around 1:30 
in the afternoon.

A waiter came over and took the poodles away, delivering them to 
Kitt's suite upstairs. She had a gig going at the Carlyle, and most of 
the shows were sold out.

The next 90 minutes were unforgettable. There were stories of men she 
had conquered (Sammy Davis Jr. among them), foreign lands she had 
traveled to, songs she had sung. I remember what she ordered because I 
held on to the receipt for years to show to people: salmon, asparagus, 
white wine, two glasses, which turned into three glasses. I wanted to 
cry every time I saw her motioning for the waiter: "Water, please, and 
bottled." But every other minute brought forth some delicious 
revelation, a tale of a child born in South Carolina to sharecropper 
parents and who forced the entertainment world to take notice of her.

Consider the era she thrived in -- and the competition she faced. Kitt 
came of age when a bevy of sepia beauties were just starting to strut 
their stuff from Broadway to Hollywood. It was the 1950s, and Madison 
Avenue may have ignored these women, but they were seen now and then 
in the pages of Life and Holiday magazines.

Lena Horne, Dorothy Dandridge, Hazel Scott, Joe Lewis's wife, Marva, 
Sugar Ray Robinson's wife, Edna Mae, and Kitt were different from the 
darkly hued and heavy-set black women of 1940s Hollywood, women like 
Hattie McDaniel, Ethel Waters, Butterfly McQueen and Louise Beavers. 
Those women were known mostly for playing maid roles in cinema.

This new group of beauties changed the way that America looked at the 
black woman. They went to parties hosted by Joe Louis in Chicago or 
Manhattan; they hung out at Sugar Ray's nightclub in Harlem, their 
images reflected in the long mirror behind the bar. They all came to 
admire themselves in some of those old Negro periodicals -- Sepia, 
Ebony and Brown. Their pictures hung in hair salons in black 
communities throughout America. They competed against one another for 
movie roles: Kitt got "Anna Lucasta" alongside Davis, among other 
roles. And she had to sweat her way through the "Anna" auditions.

"The camera couldn't conceal the fact that Eartha was not a beautiful 
woman," Philip Yordan, the writer of "Anna" told me.

But no one, absolutely no one, could have told Eartha Kitt she was not 
beautiful. She refused to be in the shadow of Horne or Dandridge. Kitt 
had a repertoire that ranged from nightclubs to Broadway to dramatic 
roles in movies and TV.

Maybe it was because she was born poor, and maybe that birthright 
either scars you or propels you into other dimensions, but Kitt fought 
harder than Horne, Dandridge and Scott for recognition. She took 
risks, kept an edge about her, singing sexually suggestive songs and 
parading her body onstage in a way that some thought was too 
provocative. Her rendition of "Santa Baby," for instance, could be 
described as For Adults Only. She wore her political beliefs out in 
the open, too, and was on Richard Nixon's enemies list. She was 
ashamed of Davis when he supported Nixon and told him so to his face.

I wrote furiously during our interview. I laughed -- loud -- w

[scifinoir2] "Daddy O" brings parenting into politics

[ravenadal]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1208/16809.html

Daddy O brings parenting into politics

By: Andie Coller 

December 27, 2008 11:33 AM EST

Just call him Daddy O.
 
Most leaders' playbooks take at least a page or two from "The Art of 
War," but President-elect Obama's rhetoric seems to be torn from very 
different kind of text: the modern parenting manual. 

The "change we can believe in," it turns out, shares a lot with the 
revolution in thinking about child-rearing sprung from the work of 
Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler, which centers on principles such 
as mutual respect — or what the president-elect has called "the 
presumption of good faith" — fostering independence ("Team of Rivals," 
anyone?), and encouragement ("Yes we can!"). 

This passage from Obama's victory speech, for example, is a family 
meeting waiting to happen, complete with attempts to acknowledge his 
own limits, make room for dissent, make sure the listeners feel heard, 
and stress the importance of everyone's contribution: 

"There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make 
as president, and we know that government can't solve every problem. 
But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I 
will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And above all, I will 
ask you join in the work of remaking this nation the only way it's 
been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years — block by 
block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand."

These and other progressive parenting principles are reflected not 
only in Obama's rhetoric, but also in his approach to leadership — an 
approach that already seems to be rubbing off. 

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), for instance, recently called Senate 
Democrats' decision not to strip Sen. Joe Lieberman of his 
chairmanship a "direct result of the tone [Obama] set." 

"The old school was that you reward your friends and punish your 
enemies," she said. "But it's a new day, and there is no reward and 
punishment going on." 

No rewards or punishments? Alfie Kohn, whose book "Unconditional 
Parenting" is subtitled "Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love 
and Reason" approves:

"The most respectful — and effective — approach to parenting consists 
of working WITH children rather than doing things TO them," he says. 
`Working with' parents talk less and listen more. They regularly try 
to imagine how the world looks from the child's point of view. They 
bring kids into the process of decision-making whenever possible. 
`Doing to' parents, on the other hand, impose their will and use some 
combination of rewards and punishments in an attempt to elicit 
obedience." 

Kohn says a "working with" approach in the political realm is 
"essentially more democratic" — particularly if it offers real 
choices, and not just the illusion of them.

A progressive parenting approach also means taking responsibility for 
your own role in a conflict, says Jane Nelsen, author of the classic 
child-rearing handbook "Positive Discipline." She compares Obama's vow 
to end the "partisan bickering" in Washington or his determination to 
use diplomacy as a primary tool in international relations to the 
efforts of parents who want to break out of power struggles or revenge 
cycles with their kids: "In order to stop them, someone has to 
recognize what it is, and say, `I can even see what my part has been 
in the power struggle,' and find solutions that work for everyone."

It would be easy to bash Obama's enlightened-father philosophy as an 
insulting new extension of the nanny state, but the truth is that the 
exercise of power in any form shares a lot in common with the parent-
child relationship.

As President Bush's former chief of staff Andy Card said of his boss 
during the 2004 Republican National Convention: "This president sees 
America as we think about a 10-year-old child."

Bush's rhetorical model, however, is typically more "Father Knows 
Best" than T. Berry Brazelton.

Consider these words from the 43rd president, back when he was keeping 
his secretary of defense:

"I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the 
speculation. But I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And 
what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of 
defense."

His choice of words suggests a more no-nonsense, SuperNanny-style 
approach to his job ("It's in their nature to test the boundaries and 
it's up to you to make sure they don't cross the line") that also has 
its proponents: Bush's tough, take-no-guff rhetoric led many, 
including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, to praise him as a 
"strong leader" during a time of war.

But progressive parenting experts argue that the "love and reason" 
approach to leadership is not only more respectful — it might also 
turn out to be more effective.

According to Kohn, children who feel listened to, respected and 
understood, and who are allowed to take real responsibility and 
develop